Outside of the Box
by TheExplosiveBubble
Summary: Trying to reason with Niou is difficult. Trying to reason with Niou while he is both cross dressing and trying to mimic his teammate is impossible. light Platinum Pair, written for PoT Carnival on LJ


_For firerose1300_

**Outside of the Box**

"I make you uncomfortable, don't I?"

The words slithered into Yagyuu's ears like ice water down his back, and he jolted to attention, sitting up from his perch on the bed. Blinking owlishly at the face shoved into his, he managed a simple quirking of his eyebrow and miniscule parting of his lips.

"Would that somehow please you, Niou-kun?"

The other's frown deepened for a moment, one side twitching with the beginnings of a smirk before a light _puri_ left him, and he twirled, leaving the bespectacled boy to his thoughts once more.

Uncomfortable was only one word that could possibly describe the hollowing, humiliating twist inside of Yagyuu's gut as he sat curled up in the middle of his classmate's and teammate's cluttered room, watching as the other dug through a pile of clothes and shoes. He finally pulled his socked feet onto the bed to rest beside him as he watched the silver-haired boy mutter to himself.

"Found it!" he suddenly proclaimed, a wicked grin stretching his face, but as Niou nearly pranced to the seated boy and held the yellow shirt up, his face fell. "You know, that doesn't make sense."

He blinked a couple of times, recovered his grin, and threw the shirt back onto the pile, resuming his search for clothes.

"You may pull off our uniforms, but yellow is really not your color, Yagyuu."

Yagyuu rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Were we not supposed to try to get to know each other, Niou-kun?" He gestured at the other boy's outfit. "Where does waltzing about in your mother's clothing fall into that category?"

Niou ignored the words, his eyes latching themselves onto a skirt as he held it up.

"Maybe you'd look better in...purple?" he mused to himself before examining the other with his sharp eyes. "This falls directly into that category, you know. If _you_ want to be like _me_, you got to learn to live outside of your little, organized box."

"I like my box, thank you," came the deadpan retort. "And purple makes me think of Hyotei's captain."

"Atobe?" Niou's nose wrinkled as he flung the frilly, mauve skirt over his arm. "You need air holes in your box before you suffocate."

Yagyuu barely restrained a scoff, but the insult seemed to end the current argument. For the moment, the brunette found mild entertainment in watching his doubles partner dig through blouses and skirts—his face set in an oddly determined expression. The trickster himself had donned a tight-fitting skirt and green top. His rattail had been left undone, and long strips of dyed white hair ran down his upper back. A quick glance was cast his way, and color quickly betrayed his attentions. Yagyuu looked away. Niou only smirked.

"Oi, Yagyuu." Niou wetted his lips. "Do you remember when we first met?"

"In the tennis club?"

"No. The _first_ time."

Yagyuu blinked, the memory as vivid as though the day were painting itself in his mind. He had been practicing his golf swings at the sports field one evening after school when he had heard the footsteps of someone approaching. Startled and curious as to why anyone else would be there at that hour, he looked up and was greeted with the sight of the oddest person on whom he had ever laid his eyes. The pale hair had nearly blinded him even in the dim light. A smirk had been plastered on the other's lips, though it was not until Niou was nearly past Yagyuu that he spared a bored glance in his direction.

Yagyuu was left feeling odd, a strange flutter causing his heart so skip several beats. But the evening wore on, and he spent little time wondering about the other student for the rest of the evening.

"I thought you were strange," Yagyuu remarked, tugging at a hole in the sole of his sock.

"Why, thank you," Niou replied dryly. "I thought you were such a catch, from the start."

"I'm sure you did. You enjoyed stalking me for the next few days."

Niou sent him a look. "No, stalking would have included following you home, to the restroom, to classes, and to all sorts of strange, uncomfortable places." He waved his hand. "I kept my obsession to a nice, low minimum."

Yagyuu made a distracted noise in response, pulling his glasses off to wipe at a smudge. Tired of sitting, he placed his glasses back onto his face and turned his attention to the desk. Its wooden top had been conquered by piles of unfinished homework, food wrappers, and two wigs lying innocently upon the other rubbish. His long fingers plucked the silver strands of the wig he was supposed to wear. The other wig was short and light brown, styled similarly to his own hair.

When Niou had originally told him the plan, he had nearly laughed. However, spontaneous laughter was unusual for the boy, so he settled with a casual frown. _We are going to become each other. The other team won't know what hit them. _Niou's voice added a laugh in his mind, reminding him of how feral the other's grin had been.

Slowly, he pulled the wig over his hair, tucking his brown strands under the netted cap. It felt tight and itchy, and already, Yagyuu could imagine how matted his real hair would look after wearing the wig for a good length of time playing tennis. He pulled off his glasses, the room immediately growing soft around the edges, but he could still make out the outline of his friend's body.

"And what does cross dressing have anything to do with this?"

The words seemed halfhearted as Yagyuu's hand guided him blindly across the room. The question floated in the air, unsure if it wanted to be answered or not. The clothes, Niou, the furniture all blurred into foreign shapes and masses of colors, and all of it seemed too dreamlike for Yagyuu to acknowledge as real.

"Does it bother you," came the taunting reply, an audible smirk in the other boy's voice as he drew out the brunette's name, "Yagyuu?"

"Not particularly," the wigged boy managed after enduring several seconds of calming his rapid heart rate. "It all seems rather pointless."

Niou released a noncommittal noise. "Yes, it does bother you." The head of silver moved, and though it did not appear that the shorter boy was looking at the other, Yagyuu could only guess at what he was staring. "And...if you cannot be comfortable enough doing this—just you and me—there's no way you'll successfully _be_ me."

"...which is the point of all this," Yagyuu finished the thought.

"Yes." Again, his smirk could be heard. "As the fatty might say, _genius_."

Yagyuu snorted and bent over to retrieve one of the many abandoned articles of clothing. He pulled the skirt over his pants, sucking in his stomach just enough to get the clasp done. Even then, it was tight, and he could feel it cutting into the muscles and baby fat of his torso. Adjusting the tight cap on his head once more, Yagyuu easily concluded that all this was simply the result of Niou's warped logic. The next day, he would either come to his senses or pull another bizarre idea out of his sleeve. He immediately shook his head at the thoughts. _Already_, he chastised himself, _you're trying to predict someone else. You don't analyze people...not like Niou. _

He nearly flinched Niou bumped shoulders with him. But Yagyuu stood still, staring at the empty spot where Niou had been standing. When he reentered his fuzzy sight, the white of his hair had been muted by the second wig.

"Does your mother know you emptied her closet?" he asked his doppelganger.

"Nope," answered the clone. "She wouldn't have let me that way."

Stepping forward, he held out his glasses and felt a strange twinge in his gut as Niou accepted the spectacles. Suddenly, Niou spun on his feet and held his arms out wide. His facial expression remained too far away fro Yagyuu to discern.

"How do I look?" came the saucy question. "Like a boring, megane golf player who walks like he's got a stick up his ass all the time?"

"Because that is exactly what I am, Niou-kun. When are we supposed to start acting like each other, instead of make fun of each other?"

Niou snorted. "Geez, don't be so touchy."

Telling Niou that he had been serious would probably be a pointless effort. But an idea lit up in his mind, and as he found the temptation to great to ignore, he found himself sliding toward Niou, swaying and swaggering. He flung an easy arm over the other shoulders, and pausing long enough to push the sliding glasses up the Niou's nose, he smirked and nipped at the other's ear.

"Am I making you uncomfortable," the disguised Yagyuu drawled, each syallable dripping with amusement. "_Yagyu~u_?"

Niou's face finally became focused, and Yagyuu could see the large eyes-slightly magnified by the glasses-and the tiniest hint of a blush. The trickster, it would seem, had been taken by surprise.

"Well," he said, after clearing his throat, "You know I like my personal space, _Niou-kun_."

Yagyuu could feel his heart beating harshly against his rib cage, but he forced his breathing to remain even as he trailed his finger down the other's cheek, faking nonchalance.

"Oh? Is this too close for you?"

Niou's lips twitched, but he managed a frown instead of his trademark smirk. "Somewhat."

A door clicked open from somewhere in the house, and when a female voice announced her arrival, Yagyuu felt his smirk grow and an eyebrow twitch. The noise of footsteps bounding up the stairs echoed in the hallway outside of Niou's bedroom door, and without having to command his feet to move, Yagyuu felt himself step away.

"Is that your...my mother?"

"Sister."

"Good enough."

Into the hallway he went, flinging himself onto the unsuspecting girl. While she squabbled and slapped at him, calling him the most annoying brother to ever curse the planet with his presence and demanding to know why he was wearing a skirt over his school uniform, Niou stood in the doorway and watched the other Niou harass his sister. The two boys' eyes met briefly, and in his moment of unabashed acting, Yagyuu grinned. Niou adjusted his glasses.

"Don't be rude, Niou-kun," he said primly before disappearing into his room.

Yagyuu, on the other hand, couldn't stop grinning-even as his chin smarted from a well-aimed hit from the sister. The polite gentlemen inside of him raged at his behavior, but quickly the spirit of the trickster was infecting him. He would have never expected it to be this uncomplicated, this simple.

Releasing the girl, he practically skipped into the bedroom and shut the door behind him. Seeing another version of himself lounging on the bed, glasses glinting and mole twitching as a ghost of a smirk played on his lips. Easily, Yagyuu mirrored the expression.

"Rude, Yagyuu?" He grinned, to mask the unusual feeling of saying his own name to another.

Yagyuu licked his lips. Niou waited expectantly, his smirk growing wider by the second.

"What are you going to do about it?"

**END**


End file.
